Got an F on a college essay for swearing?

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chronic_archaic said:
I already see a therapist weekly and am on 2 different anti-depressent drugs. I'm not employed due to my OCD being bad enough I'm trying to apply for disability at 20 and feel like complete garbage about it even though it's completely reasonable, I just view myself how society sees me and I see a worthless person though I'm not.

I completely get it though. I expect everyone I know to hate my first pieces of music I'm willing to create. I just genuinely thought writing was one of my strong points and apparently it's not which just made me feel completely useless. I know I have to take this criticism and use it to my advantage. It's just... really hard right now. I've never experienced this much feedback this fast.
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As a fellow musician myself lemme tell you that it's part of life. I've been doing it for years and I straight up hate hearing my voice still, I hate hearing my tracks but it is what it is. It sounds great in your head, the lyrics are great and even the recording but after it's mixed and mastered and you play it back, yeah it sucks.

But you'll learn to get used to it really. It's to a point now where I'm like "fuck it, it felt good so I'll go with the flow" because at the end of the day you're who matters.
 
I mean, everyone's already said it all, but I'll add my baffled head shake to the pile. Your professor is correct. You need to drop the injured, wronged party tone, and you need to rewrite that paper. It's a small thing in the grand scheme of things, so fix it, learn from it, and move forward. No big. Just do better on the next one.
 
excelsiorlef said:
Evilore should honestly sneak in some sort of I own everything y'all write into the EULA when you register and compile this stuff into a book called "Common Sense, Not As Common as You'd Like to Believe: Splice of Life Tales from NeoGAF"

Or "From Is Wiping Your Ass Really Necessary? to Can I Swear in an Essay?: Common Sense Isn't So Common at NeoGAF"
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Please read through the Terms of Service in full. ;b

NeoGAF Terms of Service said:
C. By registering an account at NeoGAF.com and participating (including but not limited to submitting posts or private messages on NeoGAF.com), you hereby grant NeoGAF LLC and our licensees, distributors, agents, representatives and other authorized users, a perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable (in whole or part) worldwide license under all copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, privacy and publicity rights and other intellectual property rights you own or control to use, reproduce, transmit, display, exhibit, distribute, index, comment on, modify, create derivative works based upon, perform and otherwise exploit the messages posted or private messages sent on NeoGAF.com, in whole or in part, in all media formats and channels now known or hereafter devised, for any and all purposes including entertainment, news, advertising, promotional, marketing, publicity, trade or commercial purposes, all without further notice to you, with or without attribution, and without the requirement of any permission from or payment to you or to any other person or entity.
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chronic_archaic said:
I checked the assignment, which more than filled the criteria and used the word fuck and shit twice to make my feelings clear and add extra concern to the topic (abuse of elderly people by whoever) and I had a lot to say about that honestly.

She commented this "name here--Cursing and swearing in your written work is not acceptable. Learn to use regular written language."

My problems with this are both words are proper English and in the course syllabus it is never stated curse words are grounds for lower grades. In my English 104 course I've used swears multiple times without penalty. Is this bias on her part or am I really supposed to censor my writing?
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You totally messed up the register of English you were supposed to be using. I wouldn't mark off for a student doing that, but I'm not about to go to bat for one who did either.
 
Those sentences sound like they came straight out of a Papa Roach song, not an academic essay.

This isn't about censoring your writing (lol), it's about you needing to learn how to write in an academic setting.
 
chronic_archaic said:
The only positive post so far, and as it turns out I'm majoring in music. This gives me just a bit of hope. Thank you so much. I'm a mess right now after everything else.
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If it's any comfort, I was a music major and my essays were ass too. I just didn't care about the classes that weren't music related.

(Still passed them though.)
 
Phu said:
These are my favorite bits:

Where do we start, really? The Necklace by Maupassant is an absolutely well crafted tale of a woman who is too much a dreamer,

We can see an early portrayl of Mathilde's feelings

The night they attend the dinner both were invited to ends up being the last night these two would enjoy themselves

The couple takes a ride home to their place of living

Panic ensues when it is realized the necklace is lost

This, for the first time, shows Mathilde having a sense of humility and honesty, that very ironically is the catalyst for their next ten years of poverty all because of our common man Mr. Loisel, the so far very decent man shows a trait of dishonesty. At this point, both are left poor, and Mathilde is faced with even a more poverty stricken life that only her worst nightmares would be made of.

Old, broken, and looking stricken of years of work Mathilde was walking through the park to stumble upon Madame Forrestier herself.

Nonetheless, when Mrs. Loisel tells her the truth, the story hits it's abrupt ending; the necklace was fake.

We can assume Mathilde, as a character, had matured right after the night at the dinner those 10 years ago.

You were born to translate 80's JRPGs.
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Did OP ghostwrite True Detective Season 2?
 
Always amusing to see being unfiltered as a good thing. Somehow people are proud that they are tactless but hey that orange managed to get to POTUS so what do I know.
 
jb1234 said:
I really don't think this is one of those cases. The tone in this thread was pretty gross.
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People were being a bit mean, but the OP started incredibly confrontational. As someone that deals with exactly what the OP was demonstrating all the time I have little patience for bizarre grad grubbing based on fundamentally misunderstanding what the project is supposed to be and what the grade a professor gives you is supposed to mean.
 
Entered the topic thinking it would be something debatable where a curse was a valid discussion point or maybe a quote.

... Just casual fucks though? Well okay.
 
Lunaray said:
I'm starting to think it's just as well that I've only ever graded technical college essays. I'm very critical about how much fluff people add into their papers.
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Philosophy papers should meet that criterion, too. Writing in philosophy really rewards precision, brevity, and evocativeness all at the same time, and it can make for a fun challenge.
 
chronic_archaic said:
I'm a freshman for all the wrong reasons, I started in late 2015 but if you read posts in this thread you could probably make some possible sense as to why it's taking so long to get past that point actually.

I dropped out my freshmen year of high school due to my OCD issues. I could barely do anything at home let alone in school. Got my GED before my 18th birthday. I did well in my English 103 course, and thought my best work in my first attempt of English 104 was even better. So maybe I am just full of myself in terms of this.
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Don't beat yourself up too much, lots of people go through this kind of thing when starting college. I thought I was hot shit when I started college and could put in the same amount of effort I did in high school and get by, I was immediately smacked on my ass because of it and lost my scholarship within my first year. The worst part is even that wasn't enough for me to learn the lessons I needed to learn and I lost years because of it.

You're already way ahead of me in that you were taking school seriously from the start, have acknowledged that you made a mistake and want to improve. And it is just a mistake, yeah GAF is roasting you but really it is just a couple of swear words. You'll look back on this in a year and laugh about it. Even with all the jokes being made, I doubt anyone would seriously claim that you don't have it in you to improve your writing. If you can, go meet with your teacher during office hours and ask for some help doing that. Trying to get used to the criticism early on is the best approach. You can do it.
 
FiggyCal said:
You guys know your early college papers weren't masterpieces.
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not-like-this.gif
 
I've used "fuck" academically in exactly one essay and it was because I was quoting some of the class reading. There's a time and a place, man.
 
PInk Tape said:
It's harsh but at least you know how you can improve on writing essays.



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Did you automatically fail them?
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No, I try not to be a jerk. But I leave comments saying not to use them. Frankly anyone who uses emojis in longform writing is going to be having other problems as well.

Staf said:
What the fuck. Who uses curse words in an essay? Never heard of that before...
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I think I've gotten shit a lot. I can't recall. It tends to be the really bad papers that use an extremely informal tone, so I'm not exactly committing much of them to memory unless they are particularly funny.

I had a paper start off quoting Kanye that was pretty good.
 
JoeMartin said:
Nah, this is one of those special moments in life when finding out that you're an asshole really helps change you for the better.
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I don't believe using swear words in an essay, even if apparently not ok, makes me an asshole, nor do I find how that has to do with anything.

jb1234 said:
If it's any comfort, I was a music major and my essays were ass too. I just didn't care about the classes that weren't music related.

(Still passed them though.)
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Basically how I feel heh.

Rmagnus said:
Always amusing to see being unfiltered as a good thing. Somehow people are proud that they are tactless but hey that orange managed to get to POTUS so what do I know.
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Really? Unfiltered as I write how I articulate things in my mind, not that garbage.
 
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